By Team Mangalorean

MANGALORE August 1, 2011: The wait is finally over - the 142 eggs that two female King Cobras had given, some of them have hatched and little king cobras have started moving around in the special enclosure after coming out of the eggs which had been their home for more than 50 days.

Thanks to the extraordinary care that the staff of the King Cobra breeding programme had taken, 32 eggs have hatched for the first time in India in captivity.

Giving details to the reporters who rushed to the Shivarama Karnath Biological Park in Pilikula Nisarga Dhama, Jayaprakash Bhandary game warden of the Park told that “it was the first time in the country event, King cobras are not known to have bred successfully in captivity, but this time they did and it is a feather in the cap of the Park and Kudos to the staff” he said.

Soon some of them will be allowed to go into the wild when they can sustain themselves. They will be freed in some of the King Cobra habitats in the Western Ghats.

Mr. Bhandary said the Central Zoo Authority (CZA) had permitted the Park to take up the breeding programme and eventually it became the first and the only official King Cobra captive breeding centre in the country if not of the world. “Today it was a day that efforts fructified and we are all very happy” he said.

Why not keep all of them? When asked it was a difficult task, they need special care and nutrition. They are very venomous and the crew will find it difficult to maintain such a large population of King Cobras in one facility. “However we will keep some of them and let others go free into the wild,” he said.